Interlude : The Age of Chaos

 It's--

 It was a time before that long "void" when time and space had once lost all their measurers.

In the same way that there is no one who speaks of the "blank", before the "blank", it is also a memory that exists only in oral recitation, which has become a tradition and a myth.

 But it was a history that undoubtedly existed, and people were already at that time bravely trying to raise the faint light of civilization and wisdom against the darkness of primitive times that had covered the prehistoric age for an inexpressibly long time.

 No--

 If there was ever a time when mankind was truly wise, it may not have been that time. It was not because they knew so much - how the universe was formed, how to travel far and high, or how to glimpse the two worlds of the subtle and the great.

 Rather, as those who speak of that era always say: "In those days, people were wiser than now. They knew what they knew and what they did not know. And they knew what they ought not to know and what they need not know.

 In any case, it was not a "primitive age" as we have come to call it. Science existed, and what we call the scientific spirit already existed. But just as the ordinary people were not troubled by the principles of the magic used by the wizards, they were sufficiently intelligent not to disturb them and not to be disturbed by them, leaving them to a few scholars.

 The people lived in a society of well-established classes and taboos, but they did not feel constrained by them. For it was their choice, and there was plenty of room for them to move out of it. Like any society at any time, the outsiders formed their own society, the majority of which were mercenaries, ruffians, minstrels, traders, and prostitutes. The citizens treated them as outsiders, but the boundaries between them were blurred, and therefore it was not a matter of discrimination but merely a matter of distinction. The citizens acknowledged the existence of the society of outsiders and its rules, as they acknowledged that there were princes, that there were mages, that there were a few truly great men, and that they had their own rules. Let it be so and let it be so was a golden rule for this era.

 It was an age in which light and darkness, reason and sensibility, wisdom and ignorance were indiscriminately mixed. It was an age in which science and magic, order and disorder, superstition and enlightenment, tyranny and magnanimity, and arrogance and obsequiousness could each freely assert their rights. It was also an age in which people were convinced of their closeness to the gods, as well as their fear of the territory of magical power.

 As in all other ages, but even more so, it is difficult to describe this age in a few words. There was darkness as well as glory, peace and prosperity as well as war and cruelty. In fact, if we were to speak of this period in isolation from the rest of history, it might well appear to us as nothing less than a contradiction in itself, even more so than other periods. But it was also a period in which, for that very reason, the true state of things was thrown out with a few piles of rubbish in a very close proximity.

 In history, this period is usually called a turbulent age. Several powerful nations rose, fell, rose again, or fell away. In these times, the world did not belong to any one or a few ideals or banners, nor to any one person. The nations, the kings, the ideals, the systems, all knew secretly that they could never be absolute - even the gods and their priests.

 Nations have challenged each other for supremacy, annexed each other, and been annexed. Kings were always in danger of assassination as well as of being discredited by their own people. Royalty was sacred, but not inviolable - this was part of the fundamental beauty or blasphemy of the age, and the same could be said of the gods - and deserved respect. but only as long as they were worthy of it.

 There every event or thing had a right to claim its place - coup d'etat, dark politics, assassination, conspiracy, tyranny, benevolence, slaughter and betrayal, despicable and noble, fanaticism, subversion, natural disasters, and slaves and free citizens, justice Even the doing of justice. It was a simple, yet powerful age of chaos and chaos-chaos, of contradiction, of toleration of all that is truly glorious, that we are now losing or have already lost.

 There was, of course, a place for heroes. Their history was shaped as much by great emperors and swordsmen as by scoundrels and assassins.

 The so-called "Three Kingdoms Period" that we can dimly trace nowadays - the three powerful kingdoms of Paro, Gora, and Cheironia, despite their mutual rise and fall, always played a leading role in the history of the world, while conquering the surrounding small kingdoms, or dominating the Central Plains, or being forced to retreat severely. In other words, this period is also the period of heroic biographies.

 It was the last era in which the individual could be both great and small in any way. In that sense, it was the last act of a century of myths. The saint kings, owls, princesses, tyrants and warlords that marked it are endlessly enumerated. Arcandros, the holy king who founded Paro; Vladislav, the owl of Mongol; Yulo, the claimant to the throne; Archduke Vlad, the originator of the First Black Dragon War; Niyu Achilles, the great Mahr emperor of Cheironia; Korra Tullus, the bloodsucking emperor; Radu the Great, the martyr, and his son Radu the Less, Duke of Valachia; and the "traitorous queen" who once brought ruin to Cheironia. Silwia, the "traitorous queen" who once brought ruin to Cheironia; Istvan, the Pretender of Gora; and Remus, the Holy King, the founder of the Third Paro Holy Kingdom. And then there's Guin, the Leopard King, who has forsaken Cheironia.

 If we seek the footsteps of a "living myth" that shines with an enormous glow in this age of endless heroic biographies, it is undoubtedly the story of the leopard-headed king of Cheironia. He came out of nowhere and entered into the history of the world.

 And his appearance, or to be more precise, the process leading to his appearance, is the turning point of the so-called "turbulent era" - from the early period of the confusion of the division of small countries to the late period of the Three Kingdoms Period Although it is still a turbulent era, it is a turning point to the later period when the power relationship between the main characters and their supporting characters in the history is finally settled. In this sense, he is not only the last mythical hero, but also the first historical individual.

 At any rate, the dawn and the dusk were always hanging over him at the same time. He was the first person in this age of chaos to emerge from the chaos and intend to bring it to order.

 He did this by constantly searching for his place of origin. ...